The Real LJ Idol - Wheel of Chaos - Wk 6 - Re-imagine another contestant's entry

[bleodswean]

Playing the devil's advocate with inkstainedfingertips  amazing twisty entry last week. Skol, my friend! 




Good morning, Liam.

The voice was warm and filled with yellow light. He was sleepy and curled tight into his own elbows and knees. The bed was nothing like the little bed Grandmother had tucked him into every night, at the foot of her own bed, but if he squeezed his eyes shut very tightly and hummed so that all the noise outside his head muted and remembered the peculiar smell that perfumed the deep lines in the palms of her hands, he was sleeping safe and sound in Grandmother’s room.

Enough of the Land of Nod for you, Liam. Rise and shine with the sun.

He cracked one eye and then the other. An unwashed taste in his mouth, the bleach smell of the sheet and the mothball must of the blanket, the racket coming from the hallway. Someone screaming. Someone crying. Someone shouting. And the underlying whisper of low-pitched voices.

He was still in the hospital.

And where was Granny? He knew where the monsters were, he had dispatched one of them back to where monsters should go. The monster was gone. But Granny was gone, too. Granny who had told him stories about the monsters in their house, who helped him to understand. Softly, he began to cry.

 

The morning sun was streaking through the sparkling clear glass in the kitchen. He was very fastidious, wiping things clean, rinsing things out, drying things and then folding the dishtowel neatly on the countertop. His morning coffee was finished, the maker put away, a soft-boiled egg eaten and crumbs from his toast wiped up. All cleared away. He was seated once again at the table, the Glock in pieces across the surface, the morning’s newspaper spread out beneath the dissembled handgun. Gun oil and a rag in his hands.

He had decided that today would be the day. It was his 89^th birthday. How he had made it nearly to 90 was an impossible contemplation. He couldn’t conceive of it. Not entirely. Could a person’s internal engine run on the fuel of rage and grief for decades? It could and his had indeed. Sixty years of such incitement.

Six decades of isolation. His wife dead, her mother dead, his son institutionalized. And for the most part, the house as though they had all gone to bed the night before and only he rising in the morning. Alone. The old woman’s bedroom door closed. His wife’s bureau and closet unopened. The child’s room had been torn apart by the police. He had cleared it out later, down to the floorboards, up to the rafters and then closed that door forevermore. Most of it he had burned in the burn barrel out back.

He knew he should have breached the old woman’s room, knew that’s where the answers most probably could be found, but for what end. His wife had hinted enough and yet they had done nothing. His wife obedient, he disbelieving, and the child the victim. He had no doubt about any of that. But proving it would be redundant. Redundant to what he learned that terrible night.

What had his life been? Was this a penance served? For what transgression?

At first, he could not find it in himself to forgive, but as the years departed from his life, and the doctors implored, he began to believe he could. He should. For the sake of the boy.

It was proven useless. A fool's errand. And where after all was said and done and tried did the store of his fatherly love reside?

Again and again, meeting after meeting, even consultations in his own living room, gods how could he sit there and remember walking into the house that evening, his wife shot point blank between the eyes, her body being desecrated by the boy with the kitchen cleaver in his hand. He remembered the drenching shock and then his hands around the child’s throat, he would have choked the very life out of him, but the cunning creature had brought the knife up in both small hands and got him good on the inside of his thigh. Cutting through the thick canvas of the work trousers he had on, and he let go and the boy was gone, through the door into the yard over the fence and down into the wilds of the creek behind the house. He had let out a roar and followed. There was nothing left for him in the house. He knew his wife was dead. She had been beheaded.

Later they told him as if it were a kindness about the Glock and the nine-millimeter sized hole in her forehead. Told him all about it when they returned the gun into his possession.

There was no fixing the child. He had suggested they test him for some sort of poison the old woman might have been feeding him. And not just the poison of her words.

Years passed and the boy grew into an adult and now was descending into a late middle-aged man. Entirely unhinged, they declared, but with different words, clinical, dry, encyclopedic. It was undeniable that the child believed in the monsters he had surely been told about by a vengeful old witch of a woman.

And what of her? Had she always despised her own daughter, loathed her son in law? For what possible reason? Had the boy inherited some kind of mental condition from his grandmother? That seemed reasonable.

But doubt had been cast. In the beginning. Two long years of it. The police and the doctors, the lawyers and the judge, all casting a damning light on him as though by his own hand some trauma had been visited upon his family. After a few years of that, and the child showing no signs of improvement, they finally, blessedly left father and son alone with their own monstrous thoughts.

He had stopped all interaction. The state paid the outrageous bills. The asylum was his home now, the doctors his family. He hadn't visited in, well, decades.

Today, he would visit, the Glock tucked into a pocket. With his own retribution. But first he would visit the cemetery. Leave flowers for his wife, spit on her mother's grave.

He reassembled the pistol and began to load the magazine. His son believed in monsters? Then today he would be a monster.

Comments

[muchtooarrogant]

This was a wonderful kind of twisty in its own right. At the beginning, I'm like, "OK, it's going to be all about Liam again," and then you took the whole story somewhere else. Excellent job!

Dan

[bleodswean]

Thank you, Dan! This is always a bit tricksy of a prompt. So many amazing possibilities and one wants to be so respectful!

[earthspirits]

I read your story first, then the one you linked to. The one by inkstainedfingertips was excellent - and so is yours.

While different, the horror you invoke in your version, is compelling. The way your story starts, with a mysterious child and grandmother, draws one in, before segueing into the section with the father in his kitchen. I thought at first it would be the father's suicide, but revenge is definitely quite the twist. That last line is really something. Well done, E!

[bleodswean]

Thanks, G! And I'm glad you read the inspiration story - such a great, twisty writer! It was challenging to re-imagine it from a different possibility.

Hope you're well!

[halfshellvenus]

This seems like the inverse of the original story, where the monster truly was the father. So, definitely re-imagined, and very well told!

[bleodswean]

Inverse, indeed! That's what I thought re-imagined meant! Thanks, K!

[halfshellvenus]

Inverse is definitely a good interpretation of re-imagined! I think I went for adjacency (as a few others did), and then there were alternate retellings. I treated the prompt as more of an after-the-fact intersection (because Gary loves intersections to death), because rewriting an entry seemed... daunting? And potentially could be treading on the original author's toes? Or not, depending.

You can tell I didn't love the prompt, though I'm really enjoying the results. :D

[bleodswean]

Heh. I think it's fascinating that this original and your original were used multiple times. I think that's the sign of a compelling story!

Yeah, I didn't take this as an intersection but have enjoyed the "fanfic" aspect of many of the entries! That's the beauty of G's prompts, though!

[xeena]

As always you have such a talent for vivid and visceral descriptions and imagery! I can always envision everything so clearly in your pieces and find them a sensory treat <3
I was not expecting the turn this took at all either, you got me! Haha

[bleodswean]

LOL. Thanks for reading and such encouraging words! I took "re-imagine" literally.

[drippedonpaper]

Your entry pointed to what I consider a fact: "Trying to assign blame often leads one to go insane."

We become that which we dwell on. I truly do believe that, and your entry shows the importance of what we allow ourselves to ponder.

One of the biggest battles we all face is in our minds.

Great job on re-imagining an entry. I found that difficult, and you succeeded with ease :)

[bleodswean]

Such an awesome and amazing comment and I'm indebted to you for it. Thank you. So much.

[inkstainedfingertips]

I'm honored that you chose my piece to reimagine!! Thank you for that!

As for your piece, I think you paint a very stark but vivid picture. I love the images you leave us off on... leaving flowers on his wife's grave and loading his gun. It's such a grim juxtaposition but really effective.

I like that you show us this man who has seemingly been unraveling over decades and is now, at the end of his days, ready to put an end to the monster. It's a really different spin on the original piece and I appreciate you taking it that outside the original box. This was a really fun read!

[bleodswean]

Well, surely you must know I'm a huge fangrrl. It was such an iconic piece. I took re-imagine to mean literally re-imagine so I'm relieved you're not upset about the twist in monsters....although to be fair to the brilliance of the original - the father does become a monster.

Take care and be well. And keep hittin' them keys with all that aplomb!

[inkstainedfingertips]

This means the world to me. Thank you for such kind words. I'm grateful!

[legalpad819]

This was really cool, because I loved the original piece, and this one reads "bleodswean" in its tone and descriptive language. It was the perfect combination for retelling!

[bleodswean]

I love this comment and it made my day brighter - thank you!

[alycewilson]

I didn't think this could get darker than the piece on which it's based, but it definitely did!

[bleodswean]

LOLL. That was the personal challenge I gave myself, A. Because this writer's work can be so dark!

[rayaso]

This was a great re-imagining - turning the fantastic original 90 degrees and filling it with your imagination and wonderful details. The end was so creepy!

[fausts_dream]

Inkstained fingertips and bleodswean... Talk about two great tastes in one candy bar.

I forget where I read it or saw it in a film but I remember a great line that said love is a fleeting emotion but hate can keep you going a long time